What Kind of Philosophical Bend?

If little things bothered me as much as they bother some people, our marriage would have been another divorce statistic years ago. It’s not so easy to ignore someone who brushes their teeth with warm water. But I do.

And it’s not so easy to ignore the fact that every time he gets behind the steering wheel of a vehicle, he drives like an Indy 500 Racer, but I do. And it’s not so easy to ignore the traffic tickets, but I do.

And it’s not so easy to ignore the fact that every time he gets his best clothes on to go to some really important function, he stops the car half way there (even though the car has expressed no complaints), and gets under the hood to massage the motor. But I do. His excuse always being that preventive ‘attention’ keeps everything in good nick. Can’t fault him for that either. After all, don’t our health administrators have the same idea? Hike, walk, run all day long, drink a truckload of water and eat everything raw and you won’t get sick. And that creates some kind of warped populace perception that if we are sick, it’s our own fault.

Anyway, so I’ve put all those annoyances away. Choosing to ignore them, rather than make a fuss. But there is still one that hangs on and annoys the hell out of me. And it has to do with ‘the last bit of anything’.
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Last night Hub made a pot of coffee for us way late at night. First of all there was the discussion about whether it was smart to be drinking coffee before bedtime. ‘Cause you know how that goes. You end up working the night shift not because that’s your job but because you can’t get your eyes shut – until around four in the morning. But ‘coffee’ conjures up pleasant thoughts and talking about it creates the need, so I agree. It would be really nice to have a coffee and if I only drink one cup, I know it will have little effect on my sleep.

Hub sets the coffee brewing and with a happy little skip, comes to tell me coffee is almost ready, and because the coffee can was so close to empty, he used it all. He tells me as if it is a conquest, a good conquest, a great conquest. Emptied the can, that’s what he did. Can one not fail to admire him for that?!

And so now here comes the coffee. Tastes mighty fine, I have to admit. But it is killer coffee. The kind of coffee positively guaranteed to keep all night-shift workers alert and on the job. The kind of coffee we only drink, when we need an early start to an overly long day. I’m annoyed, but I say nothing to ruin the happy effect of emptying the can – cleaning up, I guess, in a manner of speaking or thinking or whatever.

Now this same attitude of ridding oneself of the last bit of anything carries on in other ways as well. And some of them are even more annoying than killer-coffee at midnight.

If there is two-thirds of the last onion left in the house, Hub will make a raw onion sandwich with not two or three slices of onion, as is usually the case. Oh no. He will use the whole thing and do a wee happy dance because he has rid the place of it all. If he is snacking on raw celery and cheese, don’t be looking for any for the stew tomorrow, ‘cause he’ll be cleaning it up good and proper.

And if the sugar bowl is depleted, he will add extra to his coffee to clean it up. If the butter dish is depleted he will use double the normal amount to use it all up. If the toothpaste is depleted, he will use a blob as big as a walnut or Jap orange, just to clean it up. If he is building something and there are four nails left, he will pound them in somewhere, somehow.

No matter what it is. When anything reaches the quarter mark, he is obsessed with cleaning it up. He can’t even stop for gas when we are driving until we are shutting off the motor to go down hills and driving up the next on fumes.

And unfortunately, I usually end up emptying the garbage because when is it ever less than half full?

The Depletion Game – it makes him happy. It drives me crazy. Makes me wonder why I stick around.
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And so now, there are two reasons why I can’t query this behaviour. One is because Hub finds such pleasure in doing this, (can’t ruin his good time, you know), and the second reason is because it irritates me enough that I might end up over-reacting. So if you understand this philosophical bend, you tell me.